Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/62



heat burned into the heart of the grasses, and they withered to spring up again under the cool dew of Autumn nights. The foe made no more northern demonstrations, and we slipped back into the old routine again.

Our convalescents sometimes made raids into the woods, and captured the pigs which fattened them. We had one on an eventful day roasted to delicious perfection, and waited for the meal, when one of the boys came hurrying in, while visions of the guard-house disturbed his agitated digestion, saying, as he went, close to my ear.

"O! Aunt Becky, hide the pig—Col. Tracy is coming." Aunt Becky said, "No, Col. Tracy will stay to dinner, and shall eat of it—it is so nicely done—you know." And he did remain, and as he sat at the table eyed me sharply for a moment, then smiled, and ate the roasted pig as any honest soldier would when he knew it was fattened on rebel stores.

Nothing ever came to the boys of the lost pigs, although a sharp search was made for them soon after. Sick men of course could not know, and we